WaPo Editorial: Jobs report shows an economy on the move
IF VOTERS ARE assessing President Obama based on their job prospects — well, he asked for it. In a Jan. 15, 2009, meeting with The Post’s editors and reporters, Mr. Obama told us how he should be judged four years later: “Have we created jobs that get the economy back on track, businesses investing again, people feel some confidence, that we’re on the move? That is my number-one priority.”
Friday’s employment report gave Mr. Obama a reason to crow. Having hit a high of 10 percent in October 2009, the jobless rate fell in September to 7.8 percent, the level it was when Mr. Obama took office amid a historic wave of job losses. More important, it fell even as the labor force grew; previous rate declines partly reflected worker discouragement. The percentage of adults with a job rose from 58.3 percent to 58.7 percent, wages by 0.3 percent.
This is not small progress, considering the depths of the recession with which Mr. Obama was confronted upon taking office and considering that no president can fix, or ruin, the U.S. economy by himself — let alone the global economy upon which the United States depends. Unemployment probably would have been worse but for some of Mr. Obama’s policies, such as the financial-sector rescue, a government-funded auto industry restructuring and, yes, many elements of the $814?billion stimulus package he pushed through Congress over much Republican opposition. That’s a fact, even if only the auto bailout is popular enough for Mr. Obama to tout in the campaign.
Yet some of what went right began even before Mr. Obama took office: President George W. Bush got the $700 billion financial bailout fund through Congress in 2008, then used it to keep General Motors and Chrysler alive through Inauguration Day. The Federal Reserve’s monetary policies, too, have propped up the economy; Chairman Ben S. Bernanke recently claimed that the Fed’s actions alone saved 2 million jobs.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jobs-report-shows-an-economy-on-the-move/2012/10/05/db086556-0f18-11e2-a310-2363842b7057_story.html
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